The World Bank has said that Kenya must accept press freedom before it lifts an aid freeze imposed in January. This condition was issued two weeks after Kenya’s government raided the offices and burned newspapers belonging to the Standard Group, the country's second largest media group. The World Bank originally suspended the aid payment of 250 million dollars in January after the eruption of a corruption scandal now known as the Anglo-Leasing affair. A leaked report suggested that hundreds of million of dollars of government contracts had been awarded to a non-existent company called Anglo-Leasing.
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Chile’s newly elected President Michelle Bachelet has promised free health care at public hospitals to people aged sixty and over. It is estimated that more than 300,000 people will be eligible. She also said her government will give priority to social issues. Elected in January, the former socialist defence minister is Chile’s first woman president.
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Brazilian troops have pulled out of shantytowns in Rio ending a ten day failed effort to retrieve stolen weapons. Around 1600 troops occupied the shantytowns in search of 10 assault rifles and a pistol which were stolen at the beginning of the month by masked gunmen. The troops left without recovering any weapons after their authorisation to search had ended. The occupation has been described as the first phase of an operation to strangle drug-dealing operations. Rio is one of the world's most violent cities, with an annual murder rate of nearly 50 per 100,000 people. Most of the violence takes place in the city's shantytowns, often controlled by the drug gangs.
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Voting for the Belarus presidential elections is to begin five days earlier than scheduled. Main opposition candidate, Alexander Milinkevich, has urged people to stay away, saying early polling is an opportunity for the votes to be manipulated by the incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko. The president, who has been in power for 12 years, changed the constitution to allow him to stand for another term. The Central Electoral Commission defended the early polling saying it is practised all over the world.
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The number of deaths from measles reported worldwide has dropped by nearly fifty per cent. The World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund reported a reduction of 48 per cent between 1999 and 2004 as a result of major national immunisation activities . The largest drop was in sub-Saharan Africa, where estimated measles cases and deaths dropped by 60 per cent. Although an effective and inexpensive vaccine is available for the disease, hundreds of thousands still die because of poor immunisation systems that are unable to deliver the measles vaccine to young children.
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Ethiopia and Eritrea have reached an agreement on their long standing border dispute. The agreement to allow a technical expert to help with the demarcation of the border was reached at a meeting in London between the two countries and representatives from the United Nations. A war sparked by the dispute began in 1998 and problems persisted after a peace deal was struck in 2000. In 2002 an international tribunal ruled on the border but Ethiopia insisted on more discussion and Eritrea refused. Further talks are to be held in London in April.

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